An arrival and a beginning
I’m standing near a gate at the end of a driveway, halter and lead rope in hand, heart thumping. I look down the gravel road towards the bend. Waiting. Waiting. Fifteen minutes ago my phone rang and the driver said he was 35 minutes away. So why am I standing here looking expectantly down the road when he is still 20 minutes away? Twenty minutes, that is, if he was being truthful and had calculated correctly and hasn’t been held up by anything. I look longingly down the road but I’m too early.
I take a breath and walk across the road and up a narrow side-road – the driveway I was standing at the end of is on the opposite side of a T-junction, as if it forms a crossroad with the side road and the main road. It’s not really a main road. It’s a minor gravel road in the country. But I’ve crossed the gravel now and am walking up the side-road. A dog barks at me from the yard of a farmhouse. I look across and am comforted by the fence and distance between me and the dog. I keep walking. I look at my phone. It’s 18 minutes since the driver called me. I keep walking. I tell myself I will not look at my phone again until I get to the top of the hill. I keep walking. I try not to rush. I try to notice things.
There is a huge karri tree on the verge just ahead and the road makes a little dog-leg around it. The karri is not at the top of the hill, but perhaps I will turn around when I get there. I don’t want to not be back at the gate in time. I get to the tree. It’s not much further to the top of the hill. I force myself to keep walking without checking my phone again. I get to the top of the hill. There is a driveway off to the left. It curves down a hill to a farmhouse that overlooks a valley. I notice how pretty it is and then look at my phone. It’s 24 minutes since the driver rang. I turn and walk quickly – I feel like running, but I walk – down the hill and back to the gate. Twenty-nine minutes.
In the paddock across the road a magpie is fossicking in the grass. I briefly wonder what it is after. I briefly envy the magpie’s absorption in the moment. I watch it, trying to be absorbed in its actions. Thirty-three minutes.
I look down the road. I can hear a truck. I wipe my sweaty hands on my dirty shirt, switching the bundled halter from one hand to the other as I do so. The truck approaches. It doesn’t slow down. It goes past. I turn from the billowing dust as it passes. It’s the wrong truck. Thirty-five minutes. Thirty-six minutes. He’s late. Breathe. It’s okay. Wait.
I hear another vehicle. But this one is a car. Again, I turn my face away from the dust as it passes.
Thirty-nine minutes. I hear the crunch of tyres on gravel, the hum of an engine. A white truck comes into view. I wait. The truck slows, puts its hazard lights on and stops in the middle of the road. I stand in the swirling dust. The driver gets out, shakes my hand. He drops the side panel down forming a ramp. I notice how steep it is. The driver swings open an internal dividing gate, then reaches and takes the halter from me. I’m surprisingly calm now. I’m still expectant, excited; but the worry has gone. My angst has settled with the dust.
I stand back as the driver leads the chestnut gelding down the ramp and hands the lead rope to me. My new horse. Welcome Panache.
I could end this post there, in that happy place after the angst. But it would be disingenuous to do so. Strap in for a longer read.
The first thing I noticed as Panache walked down the ramp was that he was very sweaty. Clearly, he had been very stressed. As the driver handed me the lead rope, I saw blood on Panache’s right hind leg.
‘He’s bleeding,’ I said to the driver. ‘Yes, he scraped his front leg when we were loading him. He was a bugger to load. Took a while.’ I looked at the front leg and noticed that the driver was right, Panache was also bleeding there, but not as much as the back right. ‘What about that?’ I asked, pointing at his back leg. ‘Oh, he must have done that on the truck.’ ‘And there,’ I said, pointing to more blood on the left back leg. The driver nodded, concern etched on his face. I think he was worried about the horse but maybe he was also concerned that I might complain, get emotional, make a fuss. But all I could think of was getting Panache up the driveway and treating his injuries. I wasn’t up for a fight about the state of the horse.
I walked away, leading Panache. I checked his gait as best I could. (It’s easier to check a horse for lameness if someone leads it towards or away from you.) He didn’t seem to be lame. He walked quietly beside me. His footfalls sounded even.
Up across the paddock Dante and Floss were watching us, heads high, nostrils wide. They galloped down towards us. Panache lifted his head and watched them but walked calmly beside me. I stroked his nose.
Dante reached us first, pranced along on his side of the fence. ‘That’s Dante,’ I said to Panache. ‘He can be a bit of a bully but I’m hoping you’ll be friends. Dante, this is Panache. I expect you to be nice to him.’ Floss trotted up to the fence. ‘And this is Floss. Floss, this is Panache. He’s come to live with us.’
I opened the gate into the small paddock adjoining the large paddock Floss and Dante were running in, so there would still be a fence between them as they got to know each other. I stroked Panache’s neck. The sweat that drenched him on the truck was evaporating, leaving his hair bristly. I stroked it smooth, checking him all over. That was when I noticed the blood on his rump, shoulder and flank. He was raw, as if he had either fallen and grazed himself or been scrambling in the truck and done the damage by constant rubbing. My heart sunk.
‘I’m sorry, Panache,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you found the trip so difficult. It will be okay now. I promise.’ I stroked his nose. He leaned his head into me. All trust. We stood, face to face, foreheads resting against each other, breathing each other.
I took the halter off and let him go. He walked around the paddock, picked at the grass. I could now see that he was definitely not lame. Despite his stress, he was remarkably self-contained, his outward demeanour calm. Dante watched him over the fence. Floss went back to grazing. I made some phone calls.
The paddock where I am currently keeping the horses is a fifteen-minute drive from our house. (There’s a lot of work being done at home, so I have moved the horses away until the chaos has passed and things are sorted.) I rang Rob and gave him a list of things I needed to care for Panache’s injuries. I rang my friend who is a vet. She was going away the next day and was technically already on holiday but advised me anyway. (Thank you!) I sent her photos of the injuries. Later that evening I went and picked some meds up from her. But first, I waited for Rob. He took a while, as he had to come via town to buy some extra stuff.
Meanwhile, I hung out in the paddock. I gave all three horses a bucket feed. Floss and Dante devoured theirs. Panache sniffed his, nibbled a mouthful, then walked away. Too stressed to eat I guessed.
Rob arrived. I haltered Panache again and Rob held him while I washed and disinfected the cuts on his legs. Sprayed them with an antiseptic and fly repellent. Inspected them closely. Panache stood quietly as Rob stroked him. Rob’s not particularly horsey but he’s completely smitten with this one. It’s understandable. He’s an adorable creature.
Panache arrived shaken and sore and with minor abrasions, but not seriously hurt. This isn’t the start I wanted to have with him, but it’s the start we have. It will be okay. There’s a line in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that goes something like this – ‘It will be okay in the end and if it is not okay, then it is not the end.’ That’s how I feel about this situation. It’s not okay that Panache had such a hard time traveling to get to me, it’s not okay that he got injured on the way, but it’s not the end. This is the beginning. It will be okay. No, it will be better than okay. It will be superb. Already he is healing, settling, making friends, getting to know us all. We have many happy trails ahead. And so it begins.
Thanks for reading,
Jill